SAN FRANCISCO -- Major League Soccer and the Oakland
Athletics announced a deal Wednesday to bring a soccer team back to
the Bay Area if the team's owners can develop a stadium plan.

The team would replace the San Jose Earthquakes, who moved to
Houston following last season after public financing for a new
facility in San Jose fell through.

Lew Wolff and John Fisher, the A's principal owners, will have
three years to buy a team and develop a stadium solely for soccer.

The location of the new stadium has not been determined but the
new offices will be located in downtown San Jose. The price of the
contract was not disclosed.

Wolff said the decision was motivated by growing interest in the
sport and is not related to his bid to move the A's out of Oakland
over financing squabbles for a replacement for the aging Coliseum.

San Jose has long wanted to welcome the A's but Wolff has
reportedly said he will honor Major League Baseball's rules that
say San Jose territorial rights belong to the San Francisco Giants.

"We think we're hitting the soccer world perhaps at exactly the
right time," Wolff said. "It's not a simple task even to find
land in the Bay area, but we think there's lots of opportunities,
and we can be creative if we have to."

The two-time MLS champion Earthquakes were unhappy sharing San
Jose State's Spartan Stadium and blamed money woes and slumping
attendance on the lack of a dedicated facility.

The Quakes won MLS championships in 2001 and 2003 led by former
star forward Landon Donovan but attendance slid to an average of
just 13,037 fans last season.

City Council officials objected to using public funds to finance
a new stadium but wanted to keep the team, even trying to persuade
the owners of the Sharks' hockey team to buy the Earthquakes.

Talks collapsed after the Sharks demanded money from the city to
help finance the facility.

A mix of public and private funding is planned for the new
soccer stadium, but Wolff said he hopes to avoid sending the matter
to voters.

The initial search will focus on San Jose and the South Bay, he
said.

"San Jose is a terrific place for sports if they can get their
acts together," he said. "We love the interest in soccer from
local people, both from the South Bay and East Bay area, and we're
hoping to find a way to make it acceptable."

Major League Soccer Commissioner Don Garber said local ownership
and a new facility will re-ignite fan zeal and help reverse sinking
attendance and revenues.

"We're well aware through our previous experiences of the
passion and knowledge of the sport in the Bay area, but we believed
from the beginning we needed a local owner and we needed a stadium
plan," he said.